Forget You, Danny Fenton
by Jynxpixie
Summary: Sam certainly wishes she would. Both Danny and Tucker have deserted her - gone without a trace - and a year later she's stiil struggling. It's amazing how everything in her world is so different and yet remains the same. ANGST DAY Sorry about the repost!


**I'm not completely sure if this is Angst. but I have an idea for both a sequel, which includes somebody decking Paulina, and a prequel, which has the scene where Tucker and Danny leave, if you want it. )  
**

She leaned against the door, relieved to finally be out of the house. As she looked up, she didn't regret being outside like she had before. It was a stormy gray. Not a light gray like you would see if the moon were slightly darker. An angry gray, and it was about to take its slight fury on the seemingly fragile city of Amity Park.

For Sam, this was a good thing.

Of course, when it had first happened, she welcomed any reminder. Valerie had the same color eyes as her comical friend. Jazz had more similarities with her brother, both physical and mental, than she would like to admit. It seemed that everyone had some shade of green or blue eyes, even her own parents. Heck, even Paulina had blue eyes. And Danielle's visit to see if Sam knew anything at all where Tucker and Danny had gone had been perfect.

Sam did not know where they had gone. If she had she would have joined them by now and left this miserable town where memories flew at her left and right. That's where the first fake-out make-out was. That's where she first met Tucker at a birthday party, snapping at Dash until he backed off. That was where she'd decked Paulina in the 7th grade when Tucker and Danny had failed to restrain her...good times...

After that, though, the reminders increased and began to be pretty painful for our heroine. And the biggest reminder she received everyday, because no matter how many invitations to the Fentons' she declined or how many people she avoided, the sky was always - ALWAYS - the same shade of blue that appeared in her head every night and sometimes during the day. It hurt. She kept her head on the ground while outside. She didn't care about the biological laws anymore. Her best friends were gone and her world had taken a complete 180. How _dare_ the sky remain blue. It wasn't allowed. It was simply not so. Yet it was. And it stubbornly remained blue, until a rainy day came by like this.

She looked up, and a few drops fell on her face as many more pattered the side walk. She took a few steps out, and was soaked as the falling rain increased its tempo. She'd walk back inside and her mother would tell her softly that she would catch a cold and that she shouldn't go outside in such weather, it was unbefitting a Manson to fall under the weather in such trivial circumstances - or some other such nonsense.

Sam continued walking. The other good thing about rainy days is that there weren't a whole lot of people outside. No one to look at her worriedly or actually ask her if she was going to be okay.

Of course she was going to be okay! She was Samantha "Sam" Manson! Kicking back or kicking butt, always by her best friends, she could do almost anything. She was not limited by the stupid rules of her parents' high class society. Kicking a rock at this thought, the rain slowly began to diminish into nothing. The sun slowly came back out - and the sky was once again an agonizingly baby blue. She growled; she couldn't do a darn thing about it, either.

Sam hated the sky now. She hunched her shoulders and stomped back home.

The next day was school. This had never been Sam's favorite part of life, except in the first or second grade. When she actually made friends with Tucker and Danny, because she'd tackled Dash, the bully. She smirked. That had been fun.

She hit herself over the head with her book. This was _not_ helping.

What was she supposed to do? Totally ignore it until the pain was just gone? Go numb, unaware of the rest of the world? Get rid of everything that reminded her of them?

Or maybe she could cry herself to sleep every night, devastated that they'd left her.

She snorted. _Riiiiight_.

Well, she couldn't ignore it. She was not going to throw herself into grief. Life went on, didn't? Whether or not they had left.

_Looks like I'll have to stick with blundering through life 'til I get myself together,_ Sam thought.

She vowed to do it soon.

Later in the day, she avoided a foot meant to trip her, sending a glare over her shoulder, only to turn back around and bump hard into Valerie Grey, alleged ghost hunter. They both fell to the ground, Sam flat on her back, Valerie on her butt.

"Hey, _watch_ – oh." She stood up and held out a hand for the goth girl to grab onto. Sam ignored it and got up on her own, picking up the stray papers she had dropped. Valerie watched her with the slight, ugly hurt that had sprouted from being snubbed.

But as Sam got up and made to walk away, Valerie said, "Wait, Sam!"

Sam turned back around to face Valerie and paused, which was when the daughter of Axiom Labs realized that she had no idea what she meant to say.

"So, uh…how are – things?" she muttered awkwardly.

Sam closed her eyes, then slowly opened them, her light glare actually intimidating the other girl. "What do you want, Grey?" she asked coldly, putting the slightest emphasis on the surname to indicate that the two were _not_ on first name terms.

Valerie hesitated. "I don't know," she admitted after a small pause. "I just feel like I should be nicer or something, because of….well, you know."

"You want to be nicer?" Sam was irritated. Just because the root of their animosity was gone could mean they could stop sending glares at each other in the halls; she would be up for that.

That did not mean they could be friends. No way. Especially with a person who'd worked to exterminate Danny Phantom, also Danny Fenton, one of her best friends, permanently.

"I guess it's because Danny's gone," Valerie continued, staring down at the floor to avoid Sam's eyes, not sure what she would've seen if she'd looked into the girl's face. "I know now that that was the main thing between us, and he's not here to do that anymore, so –" she cut off, as she'd looked up to see the furious look on Sam's face.

"Okay." Sam set her jaw. "Can you do me one favor?"

"Sure," Valerie agreed cautiously.

"Don't treat me any differently. Avoid me, scowl at me, ignore me, I don't care. You're Grey, I'm Manson." Her hands shook with repressed anger. Valerie doesn't know. It's not her fault, she told herself. "It was not just because you and Danny dated that I didn't like you."

"Look, Sam," said Valerie, sounding more like her older self. "You need someone to talk to. Even if it's –"

This time it was Sam who cut her off. "Are you saying I need to see a _shrink_?!" she cried, earning a few stares from passers-by.

"No, just a friend. I'd be that friend if you'd let me. What'd I do? I'll fix it."

"Only because you need a friend just as much as I do, assuming Star's absence is anything to go by," Sam snapped bitterly. "I don't want your friendship." She turned to go, feeling a strange urge to sob.

"Sam."

"I don't have anything more to say to the Red Huntress." She said it without thinking, but it served the purpose – to shut Valerie up. Hoping desperately she hadn't revealed Danny's secret, Sam hurried away to her first class, sitting in her seat just as the bell rang.

At the end of the hour, she slowly straightened out of her slouch, unwilling to get up. Why should she?

Oh. Right, college.

Reluctantly, she stood up, slowly trailing after the rest of the class. She usually wasn't feeling like this, but she had no energy today. It was when this thought crossed her mind when she was tripped by none other than the Latina Casper High beauty, also known as Paulina Sanchez.

Rolling her eyes, Sam stood up. "Look what the cat dragged in."

"Look what Fenton left behind," Paulina retorted, her face looking like she'd smelled something nasty. The few behind her chuckled and giggled.

"You forgot Foley," Sam reminded her, determined not to give her the satisfaction she desired.

"Who?" said a particularly oblivious girl, half-hidden behind Paulina and peeking out over her shoulder.

"The _techno geek_!" Another one hissed. "Don't be such a freak!"

Sam shook her head and laughed without humor. "A new circle, seriously? Needed followers who were more mindless than the last bunch? What happened to Dash and the other part of the football team?" She scowled at Paulina, crossing her arms over her chest. "Because something tells me you're going to need them. To protect you, if you get my meaning."

Paulina glanced down at her adversary's boots and sniffed in disdain. "Whatever. See you later, goth geek."

"Yeah," the others all chorused. "See you later." Their shrieking giggles pierced Sam's ears harshly.

Sam sighed and slid down against the wall. Right now she didn't care about college. She could afford to skip one day of school.

But seriously, if this was what Sanchez was playing on, she was losing her touch.

Of course, fate had to play its own tricks on her. There were quite a few things destiny had up its sleeve.

Primarily, Sam ran into the Fentons on the way to the Tasty Burger (competition to the well-heard of Nasty Burger), a very unpopular place as it looked down on high school kids. Sam had spotted the three member family first and had made to avoid them, but ever-observant Jazz, Danny's now 17 year old sister, had spotted her.

"Sam!" she called, and Sam pretended not to hear her. Unfortunately for her, Jack Fenton's voice was as big has his body; his hands were as big as Sam's own head. Sam would have to be deaf in order to not listen to Danny's dad.

"Sam!" He grinned, his usual cheerful self. "You look so down!" He bent down to her level to "privately" talk in her ear. "Seen a ghost here? You always seem to be at the scene of the crime."

_That's because I'm usually with your son, who fights them off with his ghost powers,_ she wanted to say. She so wished she could say it, looking into his delighted face, obviously hoping for an affirmative.

She couldn't, though. She wouldn't. She would not betray Danny like that. Danny's parents, Maddie and Jack, were ghost hunters, not to mention the world's leading ghost experts, and had a special animosity towards Danny's alter-ego, Danny Phantom. This was mainly in cause to the fact that they had no idea that their son and their supposed enemy were one and the same. Tucker and Sam knew his secret. In fact, it had been Sam who'd pushed him into the portal that'd given him his powers in the first place.

She squirmed uncomfortably at the thought. It was her fault Danny was half-ghost. Consequently, it was probably her fault that Danny and Tucker had left.

She swallowed the bile that had come up in her mouth, leaving a bitter taste behind. "Yeah," she said weakly, lying. "He wasn't much of a threat, though. Ran away at the site of the Fenton Thermos, not even causing any damage."

Jazz shrugged. "He probably didn't want to get sucked into this soup container," she muttered, not the most enthusiastic about her parents chosen career.

Jazz aspired to be a brain surgeon, though by the way she psychoanalyzed everyone around her, you knew she'd be much better at being a school counselor. Jazz had gotten an acceptance from all the Ivy League colleges, and had never been the social piranha her younger (by two years) brother had been. But Sam had always known her to be nice, if sometimes bossy. And she carried the overprotective gene that all Fentons seemed to have.

As Sam watched her, Jazz pulled a stray lock of red hair back into her teal headband, only to look up and see Sam watching her. "Sam, are you okay?"

"Of course she's okay!" said Maddie, before Sam could answer. With her red hair, ecstatic attitude, and that assumption, Sam couldn't help but think how much that Maddie looked like her own mother, though she'd never say it out loud. Not unless she wanted to see the hidden weapons inside the woman's jumpsuit. Maddie looked around for her husband and went over to him by the candy counter, helping him decide which kind of fudge he wanted.

Sam shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

Jazz shook her head. "No. I can tell, Sam. Why don't we go talk somewhere?"

"I'm _fine_, Jazz." Sam glared at the older girl. Jazz knew about Danny being half-ghost as well, and would most likely be a lot more helpful than any other psychiatrist.

Sam didn't need help. She was dealing fine. She knew without a doubt, however, that if she didn't get away from the Fentons soon, she was going to feel a lot of pain.

"Sam," Jazz started, but Sam ran across her before she could get any farther.

"Look, Jazz, no offense, but I don't think I can deal being with you guys yet."

"Sam, we look nothing like Danny!" Jazz said desperately.

"You have no idea. And then there's all those memories? Do you have any idea what it's like to be in your house? I actually like my place now, because we never spent any time there. How do you _stand_ it?" Sam whispered now, for sake of not bearing the embarrassment of her voice shaking. "You guys were related to him. Your parents are acting like everything's _normal_!" She was raising her voice now. "It's not!"

"We know it's not!" Jazz said defensively. "They just think he's coming back. And he is, soon."

"And how do you know that?" Jazz stayed quiet. "Exactly. You don't. You know just as much as I do, which is zero. Zip. Nada. _Nothing._ Not as much as a –"

"Okay I get it!" Jazz interrupted, and she sounded close to tears.

Sam backed off. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking," she said automatically.

Jazz took a deep breath. "No. You're right. I'm just…trying to stay positive."

"That's never really been my strong point," Sam pointed out.

"I guess that's true." Jazz shook her head. "Do you still have the note?"

"No?" Sam said, hoping she wouldn't ask why.

"Why?"

She coughed, turning her head to hide her face. "I, uh – kinda ripped it up."

Jazz brought her palm to her face. "Sam, there could've been a hidden message!"

"Don't even go there," Sam said, shutting down. "It's gone. No point in dwelling on it."

"I…well, alright, then." Jazz was startled to see this sudden change in Sam's demeanor; from friendly to stormy. Sam was always looking dark, of course, but her attitude was a different matter.

Meanwhile, Sam was engaging in battle with her own brain. She tried to block the memory. She really did. Just slam a mental wall over it until she could deal with it; she had figured it to be a good plan. Too bad for her, it didn't work. Before she knew what was happening, she was reliving it in her head; every movement, every feeling, every blink, she remembered in this so carefully preserved flashback.

"Sam, calm down. I'll call him, alright? It's not like he drowned in a field of corn," Tucker reassured her. They hadn't heard from Danny in a couple days from his vacation down in Arkansas to visit his aunt Alicia, who was Maddie's sister.

"I am calm," she retorted, frowning. "But yeah, he won't answer his cell when I call. I just hope he actually comes back."

"I don't get how you can think that's a possibility, that your boyfriend will never come back."

"He's not my boyfriend," she snapped into the phone.

"But you wish he waa-aaaas," Tucker sang, his voice tinny in the phone. Sam didn't have anything to say to that. "I'll call him," he repeated after a pause.

"Thanks. See ya later." She hung up.

A few minutes later, Tucker called back, though he sounded different; strained. "Uh, Danny doesn't have his cell phone anymore."

"Tuck, if his dad had crushed his phone again, the phone wouldn't even ring."

"No, I mean, he's not answering because he left it in Arkansas."

Sam was thoroughly confused. "What? Tucker, what are you talking about?"

"I mean he's – what? HEY!"

Sam heard the sounds of a scuffle before the line went dead.

_What I wouldn't give for ghost powers right now_, Sam thought as she ran toward the Foley residence. _Just fly at super speed. I'd have been there a while ago._

As she got closer to the house, her adrenaline reached its peak, and she sprinted. She knew it'd been a ghost who attacked – if it had attacked. _Of course it had!_ She thought, fingering the thermos in her hands. The Fenton Thermos caught ghosts; unlike most of the Fenton inventions, it'd worked the first try and every time since then. Sam had full intent in using it on whoever had her friend.

She had kicked the door open, not even slowing her stride, stomping up the stairs. Flipping open the door to Tucker's room (apparently his parents weren't home), she saw no one. She looked around, searching for a clue as to who had taken him; maybe a gloating note from Skulker, the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter, or even a bone from Youngblood's skeleton shape-shifter pet. There wasn't any immediate sign of damage, however, and as the sense of danger disappeared, so did the adrenaline in her body. She suddenly felt very tired. She lay down on her friend's bed, her head hitting the pillow – he was long gone by now. She'd take the Specter Speeder into the Ghost Zone as soon as she could think straight. Just as she was about to fall asleep, she adjusted her head and heard a crinkle of paper. Startled, she sat up, listening hard.

Nothing.

Slightly paranoid now, she fell back on the pillow, and the sound was more pronounced. Sam laughed softly at herself, pulling out the piece of paper. Not exactly sure what it would contain, se held it close to her face to read.

_Sam –_

_I really hope you're the person who finds this. After a nasty ghost incident in Arkansas, I had to leave, and I went to the Ghost Zone where I found something really big and really bad for us, if you know what I mean. So I'm going to be gone, for a while. And most likely, you probably won't see me again, because I don't want this to affect anyone I care about. Remember the Clockwork thing? The plan was to talk to you face-to-face, but I tried it with Tucker and now he's coming with me._

_You have no idea how sorry I am, Sam. You'll be okay, I know it. Keep an eye on Jazz for me, okay?_

_ Love, Danny (and Tucker)_

And that was it. Sam had shrugged, thinking that he was exaggerating. Vlad Masters, another ghost-human hybrid like Danny, except evil, had called the Fentons to say Danny had run away to his mansion and was in good hands. Vlad had been best friends with Maddie and Jack in college, but now held a grudge against Jack (that was unbeknownst to the big guy) for marrying Maddie, whom he was in love with. Jack was clueless to this, as well was the fact that Vlad Masters was the Wisconsin Ghost and had gotten rich by using his powers. Maddie, however, knew all but the last one, and didn't trust him, but reluctantly agreed, as long as Danny eventually came back. The point is, Danny's parents were put at ease. The Foleys, on the other hand, put up missing signs and still hadn't found Tucker.

Jazz, however, was much more worried when Sam showed her the note. "How did Vlad know Danny was gone?" she'd inquired of the air, greatly agitated that she didn't know the answer.

Sam had increasingly grown uneasy as well when no sign of either Tucker or Danny showed up.

Danielle, the human-ghost hybrid clone of Danny Vlad had created, came by a few weeks later to look for him or anything that might lead her to him. Danielle in every way looked like her "original" counterpart, and even shared some of his interests and most of his powers. However, she was female and biologically two years younger than Danny so she would be more stable; all the other clones Vlad had attempted to make had melted and didn't have a mind of their own. Originally, Danielle had worked with Vlad, believing that once he had Danny he would stabilize her. But when his true plan shown through – to get Danny and destroy her – she turned on him, helping Danny escape.

Danny and Tucker had disappeared over a year ago.

Coming back to the present, Sam shook with a feeling she didn't recognize.

"Sam?" Jazz sounded really worried now.

Sam looked at her. Jazz had teal eyes, just like Tucker. She winced.

_Why did Danny and Jazz have to look so much alike?_ She thought desperately. _Why did they have to be related?_

She ran. Jazz didn't follow.

The next day found her in her room, on her bed. She had a whopping headache and felt like she was going to throw up. She got up slowly to go to the bathroom. A few minutes later, Sam walked out and came face-to-face with Danny.

They stood there, not saying anything. Sam had no idea what to say. Part of her brain was arguing whether to knee him where it hurts or hug him and never let go. The other part was just glad he was back.

"Danny," she said softly, poking his shoulder to make sure he was real. She would rather this be real than an ill-induced hallucination.

Her finger pressed solid matter.

Trying hard not to cry, she sighed. "Why don't you say something?" she cried out at him, suddenly frustrated and mad, shoving the boy hard. Surprised, Danny fell down, and he looked up at her, his expression wounded. As she stared at him, his baby blue eyes flashed red.

Bitter betrayal flooded through her.

"You're not Danny," she spat, her eyes flashing.

The being in front of her transformed into his usual appearance, revealing Amorpho, a ghost who could shape-shift into anyone and anything. Last he'd left Amity Park, he'd left as an ally.

"Why don't you just tie me up or something?!" She yelled. "Why are you hurting me like this? What did I ever do to you?" Rage filled up inside her, begging to be let out, banging against the limits of her body. "I don't understand what makes me so special that you have to seek me out and do _this_!"

"I was trying to help," said the soft, intense voice of Amorpho.

"Go away," she choked out, tears of anger sprouting out of her eyes. "Just leave me alone."

The once solid form of the ghost drifted away and was gone in seconds. Sam fell on her knees and cried hard, her sobs wrenching her body. She leaned forward on her hands, continuing to bawl.

"Forget you, Danny Fenton!"

**I KNOW, I know, Amorpho seems, so random, but it can be explained in any sequels or prequels...**


End file.
